


Champagne & Fireworks

by Ljparis



Category: DCU, Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: F/M, Fireworks, Fourth of July, Gen, Jealousy, Party, Wayne Manor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 08:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10356759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ljparis/pseuds/Ljparis
Summary: Bruce Wayne throws a Fourth of July celebration and both Lois and Clark are there separately.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not in any particular 'verse though has mentions that fit into Superman Returns. Mostly from my DCU headcanon.

One thing Lois Lane knew for sure was that Bruce Wayne knew how to throw a party. The Fourth of July charity ball at Wayne Manor was like no party she ever attended. 

The ballroom of the manor was decorated in metallic shades of red, white, and blue streamers, extravagant bouquets of carnations sat on tabletops and sconced to the wall. But the grand centerpiece was the larger-than-life-size ice sculpture of a bald eagle with outstretched wings. Champagne flowed out of the base into a wide glass tub. No one had yet attempted to pick out a champagne flute from the pyramid of glasses on the table beside it.

Lois circled the sculpture and, not paying much attention to anything other than the fact that it wasn’t melting, nearly ran into someone who was walking it in a similar fashion.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he apologized.

She looked up. “Smallville, what are you doing here? The Planet only sent one reporter. It doesn’t take both of us to interview Bruce Wayne, and I’m sure not going to let you take all the glory.”

“I didn’t come as a reporter,” her former partner stammered. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“You didn’t? Then how on earth—?”

“He came with me.”

Lois hadn’t seen the woman with Clark until that moment, but she didn’t know how she missed her.

“Diana Prince,” she practically purred. She set a well-manicured hand on Clark’s shoulder instead of offering it to Lois. “Pleasure.”

Lois blinked. Clark was at a Bruce Wayne party with this Diana Prince woman? “Uh—”

“Diana’s with the FBI out of New York,” Clark explained quickly. “She helped with that Henderson story a while back.”

Lois nodded.

Diana Prince was absolutely stunning, Lois thought. Standing as tall as Clark, who by no means was a short man even if he did hunch his shoulders forward, she was just the right amount of paleness. No blemish marred her skin. She had full Angelina Jolie lips, mesmerizing blue eyes and black hair that curled perfectly against her neck and jaw. And her curves were not hidden at all in an off the shoulders scarlet gown with, Lois noticed, a slit to mid-thigh.

“Lois and I work together at the Planet,” Clark was saying.

“Yes,” Diana said. “I’ve read your articles. Didn’t you win a Pulitzer for trashing Superman?”

Lois scowled. 

Clark looked at Diana with an expression Lois didn’t understand but Diana read clearly and with ease. They’d known each other for a while. The possessive nature of Diana’s proximity to Clark said they’d known each other intimately for a while.

A strange burning feeling rumbled in Lois’s stomach. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember Clark ever mentioning you before,” she said.

Diana raised an eyebrow. But whatever retort she had was stifled by the arrival of the party’s host. Bruce, as usual, wasn’t alone, but the young woman on his arm was quite different from his usual arm candy. Rather than blonde, tall, and leggy, Bruce’s date was much shorter than he was, with short cropped and curled red hair and thinly framed glasses.

“Is that Barbara Gordon?” Diana asked in a way that made Lois think she hadn’t meant to ask it.

“Who?” Lois asked. No one answered. She crossed her arms. When she began tapping her foot in annoyance, Clark looked at her with a questioning raised eyebrow “Who is Barbara Gordon?”

“Uh,” Clark said. He cleared his throat. “The police commissioner’s daughter.”

“What, is she, like, sixteen?”

Diana scowled. “I believe she just turned eighteen. He must have been counting down the days.” She looked at Clark. “If you’ll excuse me.”

He smiled goofily at her but nodded. 

Lois watched in surprise as Clark’s date parted the crowd and walked, stalked really, right up to Bruce Wayne.

“Why are you here with her?” Lois asked now she finally had Clark alone, or nearly alone.

He shrugged. “Where’s Jason tonight?”

“He’s staying with Perry and Alice and don’t avoid my question, Clark!”

“You’ve never been interested in my personal life before, Lois.”

Lois huffed. “Listen, Smallville, you’ve never shown any interest in women before. I thought you were gay! And now you show up with a beautiful woman and you won’t tell me how you’re with her?”

“She’s a friend of mine, Lois.”

“Are you sleeping with her?”

“Lois!”

She put her hands on her hips. “It’s just a question, Clark! I’m curious.”

“Well it’s personal,” he argued. “And I don’t really see why it matters if I’m sleeping with Diana or not, but I’m not, for the record.”

Lois let out a hitched breath of relief. Why was she so relieved? She touched his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly and she didn’t really mean it. “Hey, do you wanna dance?”

“Dance, Lois? Oh I don’t think I can—I don’t think I should, rather, really—”

“Oh nonsense, Smallville, everyone can dance. Just put your hand on my shoulder and follow my lead.” Lois pulled Clark out onto the dance floor and arranged him so that one hand was on her shoulder and the other on her hip. There was nearly a foot of space between them. “See, now this isn’t so bad, is it?”

Clark looked anywhere but at Lois. “Yeah, not so bad.”

Lois smiled at him then, without warning him, stepped closer and leaned her cheek on his shoulder. He was the perfect height for comfortable dancing, she decided. They didn’t dance very much, just sort of swayed back and forth and he turned her in a small circle, only stepping on her foot once.

Clark’s date was standing with Bruce Wayne and Barbara Gordon, and they were having what appeared to be quite an animated conversation. “How does Diana know Bruce?” Lois asked.

“Huh?”

Lois pulled back to find a blush on Clark’s cheeks and his eyes on her face. She blinked and tensed slightly, grip on his shoulders tightening a bit. “I just asked how Diana knows Bruce.”

“Through me,” he said distractedly. He stepped away from her. “Excuse me for a minute, Lois,” he said. He had that strange far-away expression on his face that he sometimes had at the Planet, right before saying he forgot to put the cat out or turn off the stove.

Lois put her hands on her hips in the middle of the dance floor and watched as Clark Kent, shoulders back and back straight, walked right up into the middle of the Wayne and Prince argument and somehow convinced both Bruce and Diana to follow him quickly out of the ballroom. When Barbara tried to join them, she received a stern shake of the head from Bruce.

Lois walked over to a glaring Barbara Gordon and stuck out her hand. “Lois Lane,” she said.

Barbara took her hand hesitantly. “From Metropolis,” she said. “You work with Clark.”

Lois nodded in surprise.

“Barbara Gordon,” she introduced. Her handshake was firm and she looked Lois directly in the eye.

“You know Clark?” she asked.

Barbara shrugged. “Bruce has mentioned him.”

Clark knew Bruce Wayne? Personally? “Where did they go?”

She scowled. “Business. Excuse me, I should go talk to my father.” Barbara smiled tightly and walked off toward a man wearing glasses and a navy suit. Lois could see a gun holster peeking out along his hip. He must be the police commissioner, Barbara’s father.

Now Lois needed the champagne. She didn’t care if the entire pyramid toppled over when she grabbed a champagne flute from the nearest corner. They didn’t fall and she turned to shove the glass under the steady stream of bubbly alcohol. Lois moved to the outskirts of the ballroom and sipped, no, gulped, down her champagne.

The band made its way through two more songs before the first whisperings of a Justice League intervention at a bank robbery in downtown Gotham made their way into the ballroom. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were all present. Lois balked. The Batman let his colleagues help in his city?

“Must have been some robbery,” Lois snorted. She was on her second glass of champagne by now.

“Yeah, they certainly managed to get there quickly, didn’t they?” Barbara said. She held an empty champagne flute between her fingers. 

Lois dropped hers off on a passing silver platter. “Are you even old enough to be drinking that?”

“No.”

Lois turned and really looked at Barbara Gordon for a moment. Her red hair was frizzing in its spirals against her flushed cheeks. She had a strong, set jaw and green eyes that surveyed the ballroom with a purpose. “Are you looking for Bruce?”

“No, he’s not here right now.”

Lois wondered how she knew that but she didn’t ask because right then Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s butler, announced the imminent start of the fireworks display on the south lawn. 

“Bruce promises these are going to be spectacular,” Barbara said with a slight edge to her tone. 

The investigative reporting part of Lois started to come out. “Why do you want to be a Wayne girl?” she blurted out.

“Excuse me?”

“Bruce. Why are you here with him?”

Slowly Barbara’s face fell and softened. “It’s more complicated than that,” she said. She nodded to Lois and at the nearest exit out onto the lawn. “I’ve had a crush on Bruce since I was twelve. He doesn’t know that and I don’t exactly want him to.”

“Then why are you—?”

“He wants her. Diana Prince. He asked me because she asked Clark first. He wants to make her jealous. Why on earth I could make Diana Prince jealous is completely beyond me. On that note, don’t you think Clark’s being a little obvious? He’s never been one for many words or standout actions and yet he comes here with her knowing you’d already be here? That has Diana’s influence all over it. She manipulates both of them the way she wants them and has them both drooling all over her!”

Lois stared as Barbara tossed back another glass of champagne. 

“Excuse me,” Barbara said. She wobbled a bit. “Just ignore me. I’m stupid. You know, you should give Clark a chance or something. He really likes you.” The younger woman, girl really, smiled warmly and a bit tipsily, and then sauntered off into the crowd and away from the fireworks.

Lois sighed and moved out onto the patio. She stood beside a running fountain and crossed her arms. She shivered and shook her head slowly.

“Lois?”

She jumped when Clark laid a hand on her shoulder, curling his fingers into her skin. When she turned, she found Clark adjusting his glasses and his hair a bit windswept. “Where were you?”

“We, uh, had some business to take care of.” He wouldn’t meet her eye.

Lois realized he never looked her in the eye when he was making some excuse or answering some question she had about his whereabouts. “Clark, do you like me?”

Now he looked at her. “What?”

She drew her lower lip between her teeth and stepped closer to him. She touched his chest gently, surprised by both its firmness and its warmth. “Do you like me, Clark?”

He blinked, his eyes bright behind his glasses. She had never noticed they were quite that blue. “Lois,” he said, his voice low. “Of course I like you.”

“I mean really like me, like me,” she said, adding a hint of teasing to her tone.

“Of course I do, Lois.”

Her breath caught. The way he said it, so confident and so deep like that, so unlike the Clark Kent that she knew. She looked at him, her lips slightly parted. “Clark?”

He smiled and reached for her hand, giving it a short squeeze. “We’re going to miss the fireworks.”

She shook her head. “I don’t care,” she said. “I want—” Her gaze dropped to his mouth. Why had she never noticed how full his lips were? They weren’t chapped or rough at all. “Kiss me, Clark. I want you to kiss me.”

He hesitated for just a moment before leaning down and brushing his mouth over hers.

Lois gasped, opening her mouth instinctively in surprise at the warmth that spread over her body at his touch. She lifted a hand to the back of his head, threading her fingers into his hair and tipping his face for a better, deeper angle. 

His tongue hesitated at her lower lip. She opened her mouth slightly wider and touched her tongue to his. She could hear her own heartbeat grow quicker. She could hear his. Clark touched her jaw gently. They both jumped, lips sliding away from each other’s, at the first boom of the fireworks.

He pressed his mouth to her forehead and sighed. 

“Clark?” She looked up at him.

With his cheek leaning against the top of her head, he asked, “Hmn?”

“Happy Fourth of July.”

“Thanks, Lois. Happy Fourth of July.” Clark pulled away from her again and held her gaze.

Lois watched the fireworks reflected in his eyes. She smiled and leaned up to kiss him again.


End file.
